"Who Really Cares?" Book Review

During the recent presidential campaign, conservative policymakers were heavily criticized for tax cuts. John Kerry used biblical language to decry these measures.

In December 2005, Jim Wallis, the liberal Christian writer and political advocate, took this a step further in response to Republican budget cuts to social programs: “[Christian conservatives] are trading the lives of the poor people for their [political] agenda. They’re being, and this the worst insult, unbiblical.” He went on to quote from Isaiah 10:1-2: “Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed, to turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless!” (19)

We also hear that the Religious Right cares about abortion and homosexuality but not about the poor. Are these characterizations true? Arthur C. Brooks, professor of public administration at Syracuse University, set out study this topic. His assumption was that progressives would give higher percentages of their money and time because of their ethos of helping others. The results of his extensive research shocked him and last year he published the results of his research in Who Really Cares? American’s Charity Divide. The Suprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism.

First, imagine two people: One goes to church every week and strongly rejects the idea that it is government’s responsibility to redistribute income between people who have a lot of money and people who don’t. The other person never attends a house of worship, and strongly believes that the government should reduce income differences. Knowing only these things, the data tell us that the first person will be roughly twice as likely as the second to give money to charities in a given year, and will give away more than one hundred times as much money per year (as well as fifty times more to explicitly nonreligious causes).

Or take two other people who are identical with respect to household incomes, education, age, sex, and race. One receives assistance from the government in the form of housing support, welfare payments, or food stamps; does not belong to a house of worship; and is a single parent. The second is a working poor person (although his or her total household income is just as low as the first person’s, he or she does not receive government assistance), belongs to a house of worship, and is a married parent. According to the data, the second person will be, on average, more than seven times as likely to make a donation to charity each year. (10-11)

Brooks studied charity using two variables: church attendance and positions on government redistribution of income. High church attendance makes you religious and opposition to government redistribution makes you a conservative. The opposing positions make you secular and progressive. Looking at these two variables, he then studied financial giving in frequency and quantity, as well as amount of time given to volunteerism. Using the data for those who had strong positions on both variables he delineated four groups:

Religious Conservatives (19.1% of the population) – They look most like the national average although they are a little older (ave. age 49) and more likely to be married. They are the most likely to give money each year and give an average $2,367 per household versus the national average of $1,347. (46-47)

Secular Conservatives (7.3%) – Tend to be single men with low income and little education. They are the least charitable of the four groups. (47)

Secular Liberals (10.5%) – Compared to Religious Conservatives, they are younger (ave. age 40), more likely to be single, and have considerably higher education. They are the wealthiest of the four groups. They give about have as much in percentage as the national average. (48-49)

Religious Liberals (6.4%) – Are far more likely to be of a minority group. They are more likely than the average to have a college degree or higher. They are almost as likely to give something as Religious Conservatives but give 10% less. (49-50)

The break down of giving by economic class was also interesting. Poor families are less likely than middle-class families to give to charity, and the middle class is less likely to contribute than the rich. (78-79) However, the poor give about 4-5% of their income and the rich give away about 3-4%. Both give away considerably more than the middle class. (79-80) This seeming discrepancy is explained by a dichotomy among the poor. If you take two families with identical incomes, except one is of the working poor and the other’s income is from public assistance, the first type of family is the most generous of all groups and the second family among the least. Brooks identifies young liberals as the least charitable of all. (22)

Brooks writes:

The relationship between charitable giving and ideas about income redistribution is by no means obvious. In fact, before I started the research for this book, I presumed that those people most concerned and vocal about economic inequality would be the most likely to give charity. But I was wrong. Instead I found a large amount of data all pointing in the same direction: For many people, the desire to donate other people’s money displaces the act of giving one’s own. (55)

Later he notes:

How is it that liberals, who often claim to care more about others than conservatives do, are personally less charitable? The answer is most likely not that average liberals are purposely disingenuous – it is that they often confuse political ideology with actual giving. (70)

I suspect the religious progressives also buy into a double myth. First, they believe Religious Conservatives are not as charitable as they are. Second, they believe Secular Liberals are as charitable as they are, or are at least more charitable than Religious Conservatives.

Brooks goes on to show how secularization and government welfare tend to depress charity and is sometimes actually destructive for mediating institutions like family, church and voluntary associations. From the late 1960s until the 1990s, Aid to Families with Dependent Children was given only to single parent homes, which were nearly always single mothers. Mothers could get more money from the government than they could from having low-skilled fathers in the home. Black children raised in fatherless homes shot up from below 20% in the 1960s to nearly 70% today. Fatherlessness among the poor in other ethnic groups has increased as well. Where churches, neighborhoods, and mediating institutions used to offer the role models, nurture and tough love that helped shape the lives of the poor into productive citizens, the poor now know that these institutions hold no compelling influence in their lives. They can “work” an impersonal government bureaucracy to get what they need without any accountability to neighbors or community. This disconnectedness from community discourages connectedness with others and decimates charitableness.

One particularly interesting question Brooks deals with is the casual relationship between charity and prosperity, which seem to go together. Brooks concludes that charity actually leads to prosperity. Charity makes you feel good about yourself and more connected to others. This connectedness and other-centeredness are precisely the requisite traits that are needed to advance in business and to improve economically. Also, givers are considerably more happy than non-givers. (150)

Brooks also compares the United States to other nations. He notes the frequent criticisms from Europe and elsewhere about American stinginess, giving only .1% of GDP to foreign aid (about $10 bil.). Most nations give between .1-.2%. The United Nations set a goal in 1992 that Western nations should give .7% of GDP for aid. However, when you add up aid in other types of government assistance ($13 bil.) and contributions from foundations, religious congregations, voluntary organizations, universities, corporations, individuals and other private sources ($50 bil) you get about .5%. (119) European giving of this kind is negligible by comparison. Brooks points to the fact that Europe is decidedly more secularized than America. When he examines stats in Europe he finds that regular church attendees are more charitable than non-attendees, just as in the United States. There are just relatively fewer of them. Survey’s also consistently show that higher percentages of Americans report they are happy with life than do most people in European nations.

These are just a few highlights from the book. There is an appendix with statistical data and sources are well documented. What should be obvious from just the highlights I’ve given is that it is a myth that Conservative Christians don’t care about the poor. For Religious Progressives like Wallis to run around denouncing Religious Conservatives as those who do not care about the poor is disingenuous and inflammatory. The issue is that Religious Conservatives differ with Religious Progressives on the best strategies to help the poor. Brooks wants to marry ideas of charity and government aid together.

What I am calling for, then, is not a wholesale rejection of core progressive values – the liberals should still be liberals – but rather a selective rejection of the forces that weaken personal generosity. I am asking liberals to stand up for charity. (182)

I tend to be sympathetic with progressives in their critic of an excessively individualistic and consumerist society. Where I part ways is with their persistent conflation of “society” with “government.” They are indistinguishable terms in the progressive parlance. Society needs to address the needs of the poor. How do we know if we are addressing the needs of the poor? Jim Wallis tells us the US budget is a moral document and the way it indicates morality is the percentage of dollars being spent on the poor. We measure aid by how much input the federal government has made. This reminds me about the analogy of the movie “Catwoman,” which totally bombed at the box office. Using progressive logic we should conclude “Catwoman” was an outstanding movie because we input 100 million dollars into its production. The measure of aid to the poor is not the money invested but did the plight of the poor actually change!

Society is not the government. Government is one institution of society. There are other mediating institutions like family, church, neighborhood, and voluntary associations. The irony in much of the progressive agenda to help the poor, over against individualism and consumerism, is that their obsessive government orientation creates polices that actually damage mediating institutions and create more atomization in society. The focus for helping the poor and strengthening society ought to be nurture and empowerment of mediating institutions, not governmental intervention.

Brooks has made a wonderful contribution to an important debate with his book. I highly recommend it.

Comments

[Peter Kirk]

I'm surprised that Brooks or you are surprised. Conservatives who believe in supporting the poor by charity actually do so. Liberals who believe the poor should be supported by the government put their efforts instead into electing governments which do what they want them to do. No group is uniformly hypocritical. So it is a misuse of these statistics to make an anti-liberal point.

But the real distinction seems to be between religious and secular people. Regardless of political alignment, religious people give significantly more than secular people.

the casual relationship between charity and prosperity, which seem to go together. Brooks concludes that charity actually leads to prosperity.

(I assume you mean "the causal relationship".) Interesting, a secular preacher of the prosperity gospel!

[Michael W. Kruse]

Peter I'm not surprised by Brooks findings and I'm not surprised that Brooks is suprised. The Progressive assumption is fequently that the Progressives care about the poor and Conservatives say they care about the poor but really don't. The would not buy you assertion "Conservatives who believe in supporting the poor by charity actually do so." I'm not using the statistics to make an anti-liberal point. Brooks is using the statistics to make the point that the presumption by liberals that conservatives don't care and put their money where there mouth is, is wrong.

Yes, I meant causal relationship. I'm uncertain with you are being tongue-in-cheek or serious, but I suppose it is a kind of prosperity gospel. The "good news" is that if you are other-centered and engaged in community you tend to develop the attributes that make you successful in other spheres of life.

[Peter Kirk]

I'm a bit serious. See my own post on this subject.

[Michael W. Kruse]

Thanks for the link Peter. Brooks isn't saying that we should give in order to get prosperity in return. I think actually he is making the same observation that haunted John Wesley. If you teach people to work all they can, save all they can, and give all they can, you end instilling values and behaviors that lead to prosperity. Wesley was always concerned that this inevitable prosperity would then divert people from holy living.

Shouldn't we want prosperity for ourselves and others? Shouldn't we nurture those virtues that generate it?

[nate]

Mike,

Out of curiosity how did they define charitable giving? Were there any criteria for example feeding people who are hungry etc? Or is this simply how much could you write off on your taxes?

I ask because I wonder how much of what was given was aid or alms and how much was pseudo-political action (I know both sides are guilty of that ...) but my question remains.

[Peter Kirk]

Nate, you ask a good question. I was also wondering how much of the charitable giving from the religious conservatives is in fact tithes and offerings to churches etc, and how much of that is spent on beautiful buildings and large well-paid pastoral staff rather than on any kind of aid, or on mission. A proper comparison would need to consider only money given in aid to the poor and underprivileged, although I realise that there are all kinds of difficulties in defining that consistently and fairly.

[Michael W. Kruse]

Excellent questions. The short answer is:

“It is clear that religious people do not outperform secularists in charity simply because of their gifts to houses of worship. Religious people are, inarguably, more charitable in every measurable way.” (40)

And this includes giving to the poor. The paragraph in the post that begins under the hyperlink is getting at that to some degree.

"... [Religious Conservatives] will give away more than one hundred times as much money per year (as well as fifty times more to explicitly nonreligious causes)."

Now the long answer:

I have included Brook’s description of charity below. He measures charity in terms of money and time given. He essentially asks:

Did you give one dollar? If yes, you are a donor? How much did you give?
Did you give one hour? If yes, you are a donor? How much did you give?

Of 225 million Americans (adults):

75 million never give money to any cause.
130 million never volunteer time.

The problem is that it is exceedingly difficult to narrowly differentiate between types of giving. Take religious versus non-religious, is a gift to the Salvation Army (a church) a religious gift or a gift to help the poor? Is a gift to a church to buy tools and equipment to help clean up vacant lots in the neighborhood a religious gift? Brooks gives some anecdotal evidence. Religious households are ten percentage points more likely to make some United Way contribution (61 to 71) and they give 14% more than secular households to non-religious causes. (38) If liberals and moderates gave blood at the same rate as conservatives the blood supply would jump 45%. (22)

Sources include:

Population Panel of Income Dynamics
The Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey
The General Social Survey (The premiere social science database.)
The International Social Survey Program
Arts and Religion Survey
Giving USA
The Maxwell Pool
American National Election Survey
Giving and Volunteering in the United States
America Gives

Again, I think many Religious Progressives have a narrative that goes something like this: We care about the poor and in addition to seeking government involvement we put our money and time where our mouth is (And they do almost to the same level as Religious Conservatives.) Conservatives, religious or otherwise, don’t care about the poor. Progressives, religious or not, are like us in putting their money where their mouth is. Thus, we stand on the side of secular Progressives and join with them in condemning conservatives as greedy, mean-spirited people who don’t care about the poor.

In fact what you have is Religious Conservatives and Religious Progressives agreeing about putting your money where your mouth is in helping the poor out of your own pocket and time. Where they disagree is on the role government should play in the equation. Religious Progressives falsely conclude that because Secular Progressives agree with them on government that Secular Progressives are also charitable. And I would add, as someone who leans toward the conservative side on this topic, that I don’t think Religious Progressives have a sound Christian anthropology on the effects that government involvement in the community has on diminishing charity and fraying social ties.

Here is Brooks on Charity:

“Before talking more about charity, we should define it with a bit more precision. “Charity” comes from the Latin caritas, meaning “affection.” Scholars go to great pains to distinguish charity from other concepts of giving, such as philanthropy (from the Greek for “love of man”), and categorize giving with different sorts of motives – from altruism, to religious duty, to social prestige. But in common usage, “charity” encompasses all these things as long as they involve personal voluntary sacrifice for the good of another person (as well as, perhaps, the good of the giver).

I define “charity” very broadly. Charity can be monetary or it can be nonmonetary – gifts might be time, or even blood. Charity can be religious or secular, depending on the beliefs and tastes of the giver. It can be formed, such as a check written to the Red Cross, or informal, such as babysitting for a neighbor in need.

I use such an expansive definition of charity because I don’t want to leave anything out. The restrictions I do insist on, however, are that charity has to be consensual and beneficial. Were it not so – should the giver or receiver be forced or harmed – and exchange would be either involuntary of unbeneficial and thus hardly an express of “affection.” It is these voluntary, beneficial, “affectionate” acts that have the ability to transform the giver in a unique and important ways.” (6-7)

[Peter Kirk]

Thanks for your answer. It is now clear to you and me that the level of giving correlates strongly with being religious, and very weakly with politics. It is a shame that you confused this clear message with your misleading follow-up post with the maps, which probably says more about where people are religious than about where they are charitable.